From London to Baghdad, global protests in support of the Palestinians | International

Thousands of people took to the streets this Saturday in many European cities, from Madrid to London or Berlin, but also other places in the world, such as Baghdad and Tunisia, in support of the Palestinians. The protests, originally called to commemorate the 73rd anniversary of the Nakba (disaster), which marks the start of the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, have become a sign of rejection Israeli army bombings of the Gaza Strip and other military operations. While most took place peacefully, there were altercations, as in Paris, where the authorities banned the demonstration, citing the precedent of a similar march in 2014 which degenerated into episodes of violence.

One of the most popular protests took place in London, where organizers said more than 100,000 people marched through the center of the British capital to the Israeli embassy with Palestinian flags and banners. demanding to “liberate” the Palestinian territories. The protesters also demanded that Boris Johnson’s government act to stop the Israeli military operation. “The British government is complicit in these acts as long as it offers military, diplomatic and financial support to Israel,” organizers said, according to Agence France Presse (AFP).

Under proclamations such as “Free Gaza!”, “Palestinians ‘lives matter” (Palestinians’ lives matter, a reference to the American Black Lives Matter which has also been seen in other protests, such as those in Paris) or “Save Sheikh Yarrah” neighborhood of East Jerusalem where dozens of Palestinian families are threatened with eviction, several thousand more people demonstrated in Berlin, Hamburg or Leipzig, where a group of pro-Israel demonstrators also marched in front of those who cried for the Palestinians, without clashes.

Some 2,500 people also marched peacefully this Saturday in Madrid, as in Brussels, where 3,000 others attended the call for a protest whose organizers had previously warned on social media that anti-Semitic expressions would not be allowed, reports Efe .

It was one of the arguments used by the government of Emmanuel Macron, as well as the memory of the violent demonstrations of 2014, to ban the demonstration which had been convened in Paris this Saturday. “We do not want there to be scenes of violence and the conflict on French soil is imported,” government spokesman Gabriel Attal insisted on Saturday. Justice supported the ban, despite which the organizers called to participate in the march. The deployment of up to 4,200 police officers and gendarmes, armed with water launchers and tear gas which they did not hesitate to use to disperse the concentrations, prevented the majority of those who had come to demonstrate from walking along. a path completely blocked by the police.

Despite this, between 2,500 and 3,500 people, according to the Interior Ministry, demonstrated in Paris and some provoked altercations with the police, in a day that left at least 44 detainees in the capital, where an agent also been slightly injured. In total, during the various events called this Saturday in France, 22,000 people demonstrated, especially in cities such as Strasbourg, Marseille, Lyon or Nantes, according to official figures.

Pro-Palestinian protests have also taken place outside of Europe. In Iraq, thousands of Iraqis took to the streets of Baghdad in response to Shiite leader Muqtada al Sadr’s call. Protests also took place in other Iraqi cities such as Basra, Nasiriya and Diwani. Meanwhile, in Tunisia, hundreds of demonstrators broke isolation due to the pandemic to demonstrate with slogans of support for the Palestinian people, AFP reports.